Communications Balance in Unbalanced Times

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All hail Ann Douglas’ How To Avoid Being Psychologically Destroyed By Your Newsfeed, a great read to save your soul and sanity. I’m a communicator, I should be communicating, but I am burying myself in work that doesn’t require I be up and into the hyperspace speed of Twitter because I too am feeling overwhelmed with the news of the world. Douglas offers practical (stick to your usual routines) and powerful (look for opportunities to take action) ways we can all aim for balance, and I was glad to see I’m on track. There IS a heckuva lot going on.

For those of us who work in communications, and especially managing social media streams , overstimulation is a challenge. There is so much information all the time, and often so much crud to swim through to get to good stuff. Sarah Dawley writes on the Hootsuite blog about 5 ways to avoid social media burnout. They include self-care: log off and STAY off; and reasonable solutions like scheduling your posts. I use Hootsuite and Tweetdeck for scheduling, and pop on for live updates a couple of times a day. Another post on avoiding social media burnout also suggests signing off, and doing one thing at a time to ease stress. In the do it all, do it now mindset of social media, that second approach is a good one.

Whatever our field of work, and as grateful as we are for conscientious friends, even Facebook may feel too much at times. If that’s the case, turn to real life instead. Take stock of what matters to you, and as Douglas says, look at where you can take action. Who can you help and how? Figuring out the answer to that question can help instill a sense of balance if you feel it’s missing. You don’t have to take on the world; you can reach a hand out to the neighbour who is having a hard time getting out for groceries, or look at volunteer opportunities in your city.

For those of us who are in communications, one word at a time, friends. One word at a time.